The Doctor, the Witch, and the Police Box
by Ezra Quinn
Summary: Hermione Granger stumbles into the 10th Doctor during her 2nd year teaching Muggle Studies at Hogwarts, and he asks her to travel time and space with him because she's clever.
1. Chapter 1

"You're a bit young to be wandering around this late, aren't you?" The unfamiliar voice startled Hermione, and she drew her wand as she turned around to face it. A man was smiling and leaning against an old-fashioned Muggle police box by the edge of the forest.

Raising her wand a bit higher, Hermione asked sternly, "Who are you, and how did you get onto these grounds?"

The man raised his arms in surrender, keeping an eye on the wand, but did not appear to be alarmed in the least. "I promise I mean no harm. Well… not unless you mean harm against me, in which case I may have to cause some harm in the name of self-defense, but I'd really rather not."

Hermione kept her wand pointing steadily at the strange man in Muggle clothes and repeated her question firmly, adding, "If you don't answer me, I'll have to bring you to the Headmistress. I'll use force if I must." She felt confident in making this promise, as she wasn't far from Hagrid's cabin, since she had only just been there to see him.

"Headmistress, is it? So this must be… after 1998, but before 2017? Minerva McGonagall, right? What a woman…" Seeing the bewildered expression on Hermione's face, he added quickly, "Oh, right! Identifying myself! I'm The Doctor!" He was positively beaming at Hermione now.

"What sort of doctor? And how did you get onto these grounds?"

The Doctor ignored her first question and replied, "The same way I get anywhere," he turned and patted his hand on the side of the blue box behind him.

"But that's just a Muggle police box."

"It's a TARDIS, actually, _pretending_ to be a Muggle police box. She's a bit old, though, so the chameleon circuit's not what it used to be. Been stuck this way for a while," The Doctor smiled fondly at the box, "I could fix it, of course, if I really wanted to, but I quite like her the way she is."

"What's a TARDIS? Some sort of… portkey, or something?" Hermione asked, but then muttered half to herself, "No, that's not right. You can't use portkeys on the Hogwarts grounds."

"Time and Relative Dimensions in Space. It—" The Doctor began to explain, but Hermione interrupted.

"A time-travelling machine?" She asked skeptically.

"Aren't you clever?" The Doctor looked delighted, "You're right, but it's not just time. Time _and space_. I could go from here to Durmstrang if I wanted (which I don't, the weather there is awful), or I could also go to Raxacoricofallapatorius, or back to, say, your first year as a student here, if I wanted. Or if you wanted." He winked at her.

"That's not possible! And Raxacori—" Her argument faltered when she struggled to pronounce the name of the planet correctly.

"Raxacoricofallapatorius," The Doctor repeated helpfully.

"Right. That doesn't exist! You just made that up, it's a bunch of nonsense syllables," Hermione argued.

"Is it now? Then what do you think the Slitheen's home planet is? Poosh?" The Doctor burst out in laughter at the joke that Hermione couldn't even begin to understand.

"You stop this nonsense, and tell me what you're doing here!" Hermione demanded, no longer able to hide her frustration. She raised her wand threateningly as she added, "Or I'll call Hagrid!"

"Hagrid's still here, is he? Oh, that's brilliant! I haven't seen him in ages," The Doctor exclaimed with a cheery grin that was very nearly becoming infectious.

"You know Hagrid?" Hermione raised her eyebrows doubtfully, though she lowered her wand slightly.

"Yeah! Big bloke, lots of hair, very friendly to any creature he meets?"

"That's Hagrid," Hermione allowed herself a small smile.

"I used to take him travelling with me, a while back. I haven't been back here since, but I thought it's as good a place as any to find a good companion."

"A companion?" Hermione asked.

"A travelling companion," The Doctor replied brightly, "Travel the world through different times, travel to galaxies past and present… learning about all sorts of different cultures and beings…"

"You can do that? With that box?" Hermione gestured doubtfully at the police box, but there was an unmistakable degree of curiosity in her tone now.

"Course I can! Would you like to see?"

"What?" Her wand arm had dropped to her side now.

"Come travel with me! It's loads of fun, and very educational, too," The Doctor winked again.

"Do you just… show up in random places and ask strangers to come along with you in that, that TARDIS box?" Hermione asked incredulously.

The Doctor shrugged and said, "Yeah, that's about the gist of it."

"How many other 'companions' have you had? Where are they now?" Hermione demanded.

The Doctor's grin faded now, and he scratched his head, clearly reluctant to discuss the subject. "Well… you know. Not everyone's a Time Lord like me. Most of you people have lives you eventually want to get back to after travelling for a bit." The Doctor said 'lives' as if he doubted their existence or did not quite understand their significance. He almost sounded bitter about it.

"What's a Time Lord? What does that mean?"

"Well, for you, it means I'm neither wizard nor muggle nor squib. Just a time traveler, taking on companions as I go."

"So… nobody's died? I mean, is this travelling dangerous?"

"Oh, of course it's dangerous!" The Doctor was smiling again, "But that's half the fun, isn't it?" Seeing the look on Hermione's face that suggested she thought differently, he hastily added, "But for as dangerous as this sort of travelling is, coming along with me is the safest way to go about it."

"That's a bit contradictory, isn't it? It's dangerous but it's safe?" Hermione narrowed her eyes suspiciously at him, but not in an unfriendly way.

"Well… take mountain climbing, for instance! That's dangerous, isn't it? But if you've got the right guide and the right tools, you'll be alright, won't you?" Hermione nodded, but was still frowning in thought.

"But how is it still safe, if you've had so many other companions before? It seems like you're Secret-Keeper for this box, but you keep telling people about it." Hermione demanded, "Wouldn't the protection from Dark Magic become weaker?"

"This helps a good bit with that," The Doctor withdrew a silver key from one of his apparently many coat pockets.

Hermione scoffed at the tiny key and asked, "Unless you've got some sort of charm, or… or curse on it, I don't see how a key is going to help you."

"No charms, no curses, no magic here," The Doctor replied, gesturing with the key to the large blue police box behind him. His grin widened as he watched Hermione working through this information.

"What's your name, by the way?" The Doctor asked pleasantly.

"Hermione Granger. I teach Muggle Studies here at the school," she replied distractedly, still deep in thought about all the information she'd just taken in.

"Lovely name," The Doctor commented, but Hermione did not respond to him or say another word for a few more minutes.

Frustrated, she finally said, "I still don't understand how you can be neither Muggle nor wizard, nor Squib."

"Oh, come on now, Miss Granger! I know you're smart enough to figure this one out!" The Doctor was still grinning as charmingly as ever. He clearly wanted her to figure this out as much as she did.

Hermione had been frowning in thought, but suddenly her eyes widened as her eyebrows shot up into her bushy hair, "You're not human! Those classifications are for humans only, so if you're none of them, you must not be human!"

"There you go!" The Doctor was positively beaming now, and clapped briefly as he added, "Bravo, Miss Granger!"

Hermione couldn't hide a grin at this enthusiastic praise, but it was dashed off her face in a second as she gasped, "You're not human!"

"Nope," a hand dove into one of his coat pockets again, and it emerged holding a device that was too short and too bulky to be a wand. It looked almost like a peculiarly-shaped torch.

Hermione raised her wand defensively, and her eyes darted suspiciously from the strange torch-wand hybrid to the Doctor's face. "What is that?"

As she spoke, The Doctor turned his back on her, raised the strange silver object at arm's length towards the sky as if he was about to cast a spell, and pressed a button that caused it to emit a blue light and make a strange buzzing noise. After the light and buzzing stopped, he extended the tip to examine something within the device's casing. He frowned at it, and looking around at the Hogwarts grounds, said, "Alright, Hermione. Your school's protective shields are coming back on soon, so I've got to get going," he looked back at her and asked again, "So, would you like to come with me? Travel time and space?"

"I…" Hermione glanced around; of course, nobody could see them, as they were beside a cluster of trees by the castle gates. "Alright, but just to see if what you're saying is true. Which, if it is, I expect to be back here in time for dinner!" As soon as she'd said 'alright,' the Doctor grabbed her hand with an excited grin and pulled her into the blue box.

He released her hand once they were in, and hustled up to what was clearly the control panel in the center of the large room they now stood in. The Doctor was pushing buttons and pulling levers at the control panel while Hermione turned on the spot, taking in her new surroundings. As he worked the console, the Doctor called out, "Welcome to the TARDIS!"

"An undetectable enlargement charm that travels," Hermione nodded in approval and understanding, and walked up a ramp towards the control panel to have a better look at the workings of the blue box.

The Doctor had paused mid-lever-pushing and was looking at Hermione as if he'd never seen anything quite like her before. "What?" she asked, noticing him as she had begun to dig around in her beaded bag.

"You're not…" the Doctor looked frustrated with himself; being at a loss for words was apparently a rare occurrence for him. "You're not impressed?"

"Oh! It's impressive," Hermione assured him distractedly as she dug around elbow-deep in her bag.

"It's impressive, but what?" The Doctor demanded, either too distracted to notice or care about the impatient noises the TARDIS was making as he stopped halfway through his work on the console.

"I've traveled in a tent very similar to this. It's an extremely effective undetectable enlargement charm, don't get me wrong. And it's far better than a tent," Hermione added hastily after seeing the look on the Doctor's face.

"Enlargement charms? _A tent_?!" He cried indignantly, "This is a Type 40 TARDIS!" He stared at her, wide-eyed and breathless, and his hair seemed to have arranged itself into an indignant shape as well. When he saw that his words had failed to achieve their desired impressive effect, he said, "This is so much more than your silly bigger-on-the-inside tents; this is the glory of Gallifreyan technology!"

"I'm sorry, I didn't realize—" Hermione began to apologize, but the Doctor had noticed the book she'd taken from her bag.

"What's that, Ancient Runes?" The Doctor asked, turning his head sideways to read the title on the binding. Before Hermione could answer he went on, "Well, you won't find the translations you're looking for in there. Any inscriptions you see in this TARDIS are Circular Gallifreyan. No book of yours will have any translations for that, I can promise you." A brief pause as the Doctor seemed to reconsider this statement before, "Well… there have been books written, but none of them were accurate and none of them probably survived the—well, nevermind that. We're going on an adventure, Miss Granger!"

Hermione had put her book away, disappointed that it would be of no use, but now she looked up at the Doctor excitedly. "Where are we going?"

The Doctor grinned, his fingers tapping excitedly on the lever he was about to pull, as he said, "Oh, you're going to love this. We're going to The Library!"


	2. The Library (Part 1)

"Wait a minute! You said we could go anywhere in time and space, and we're going to a library?" Hermione demanded once she'd recovered from the TARDIS's turbulent take-off from Hogwarts.

The Doctor, who had had the sense to hold on to the console to prevent himself falling but apparently not the tact to suggest Hermione do the same, raised a finger and said, "Not _a _library, Hermione. _The _Library. It's an entire planet of books. Every book that has ever been published is in The Library."

Hermione appeared to be very nearly impressed, but not quite convinced enough yet. "So, when is this Library? What year is it?"

The Doctor grinned, and as the TARDIS grinded to an apparent halt, he said, "You really are the cleverest witch of your age, aren't you?" The young witch's jaw dropped, and before she could demand where he'd heard that, The Doctor had grabbed her hand and was dragging her through the TARDIS doors. "Welcome to the 50th century!"

The Doctor had locked the TARDIS doors and had nearly walked out of view before Hermione recovered from the shock of what she was looking at. The room they'd just landed in was a sort of cross between a Muggle gymnasium (from its size and the small windows at the very top portion of the walls) and a Muggle art museum (from its architectual style, the abstract mosaic displays on the walls, and the kiosk in the center decorated with electrical lighting).

There were also all sorts of peculiar people wandering around the lobby, passing in and out of doorways on either side. There were people who looked like trees, people who looked like cats, and people who looked like people but were not making human sounds. Hermione thought she saw a witch and a wizard pass by, but they were lost in the crowd and gone from the lobby before she could find them again.

"Come on, now, Hermione!" The Doctor called out from where he stood just feet away from a peculiar statue, gesturing for Hermione to catch him up.

Snapping out of her trance of amazement, she hurried up to The Doctor, meaning to ask where he'd heard that she was the "cleverest witch of her age," as those exact words were said to her ten years ago by Remus Lupin in the Shrieking Shack. The only remaining witnesses to that statement were herself, Harry, and Ron.

But her train of thought was interrupted when the misshapen head of the statue rotated towards them, with what appeared to be a real human face attached to it. Hermione gasped and looked from the face to The Doctor, but he did not appear to be the least bit startled by it.

The face belonged to a woman with pale white skin, large brown eyes, and fiery orange hair that was only just visible at the hairline, where the face was fused to the statue's spoon-like head. It spoke calmly and clearly to them: "I am Courtesy Node 710/Aqua. Please enjoy the library, and respect the personal access codes of all your fellow readers, regardless of species or hygiene taboo."

"What is that?" Hermione asked as The Doctor continued looking curiously at the strange talking statue.

"Sort of like a receptionist," The Doctor explained as he started walking back towards the TARDIS, swiftly passing a family who looked like they'd been partially transfigured into trees. He worked his pace up to a jog as he went through a large doorway leading out of the lobby, and Hermione hastened to catch up.

The hall they'd just walked into was enormous and felt much more familiar to Hermione than the lobby had, as it reminded her of both Hogwarts and Gringotts. There were enormous white pillars guarding each doorway, a celestial pattern in the tilework on the floor, and a wide marble staircase straight ahead of them that appeared to dead-end at a balcony. Still, as grand as this place apparently was, she saw no shelves or books anywhere.

"Doctor, where are all of the books?" The young witch had difficulty keeping up with The Doctor's long strides, especially once they'd reached the staircase, which The Doctor descended two steps at a time.

"Hermione, this is an entire planet of books. Literally, a whole world! The entire core of the planet is the Library's indexing system, it's the largest—well, I suppose computer talk doesn't really mean much to you, does it?" Hermione grimly shook her head, but The Doctor did not lose enthusiasm. "The point is, every book that has ever been published is here, in this Library, this literal world of books! We've only just passed through the entrance."

The Doctor had reached the bottom of the staircase, and he leaned carelessly over the railing, taking in the view. Hermione reached his side, clutching a stitch in hers, and if she hadn't been breathless from keeping up with The Doctor, she certainly would have become so from the view they had from that balcony.

It was as if a city made entirely out of books was spread out below them, reaching as far as the eye could see. There were levels upon levels of library sections, several labeled in unfamiliar languages. There were pipelines for transport, with small ski lift-type modules whizzing about, stopping off at each tier where all sorts of creatures would disembark or climb aboard. There were glass tubes connecting various towers to each other, within which several people could be seen walking. It was an entire planet teeming with knowledge and every book that ever was.

"It's brilliant, isn't it?" The Doctor beamed and leaned back against the rail, admiring Hermione's awe. "I knew you'd like it."

"How do you know so much about me?" Hermione asked suddenly, forcing herself to focus on more pertinent matters than exploring The Library.

"Well, you're Hermione Granger, aren't you?" She stared at him blankly, "You saved the world with Harry Potter! You're the stuff of legend in your world, you know."

"But you're not from my world," Hermione had turned slightly pink at the praise, but was still determined.

"That doesn't mean I can't know about it. I make it my business to know all sorts of things about all sorts of worlds," The Doctor replied simply, and turned back around to lean over the railing. "We're near the equator, so…" Straightening himself, he licked his finger and held it in the air like a Muggle boat captain testing the wind. "This must be biographies! I love biographies!" He beamed, and Hermione couldn't help but return the smile. Suddenly, his face lit up and his eyes widened with an idea. "Oh, I know what you'd love to see. Come on, this way!" By the time he'd called back to Hermione to follow him, he'd already dashed back up the stairs and turned down a new hallway, his long brown coat billowing behind him as he went.

They passed through several dark rooms with doors and bookshelves carved out of rich, foreign woods, up and down several staircases of varying widths and heights, passing several balconies similar to the first they'd seen, at which points the Doctor would lean precariously over the edge, sniff or taste the air, and then direct them through more corridors and rooms.

It was as if the library hadn't been built all at once—as the Doctor said it had been—but rather added onto over many centuries, where an ancient wing would be adjacent to a much more modern one. One minute they'd be bustling down a dark wood-panelled corridor that looked to be hundreds of years old, and the next they'd round a corner or turn through a doorway into a corridor that looked like an enormous test tube turned on its side. Several times, Hermione caught glimpses through skylights and glass-walled corridors of a faded moon in the bright sky, but not once did she glimpse the sun that was reflecting light brightly off the shining towers in the city of books.

Hermione attempted several times to ask The Doctor where they were going, but he would just grin and tell her they were nearly there. "We're nearly there now," The Doctor said for the sixth time, but for the first time through their winding journey, he slowed his pace as they entered a smaller room with only four or five shelves and a desk. The Doctor had given her a history lesson on the construction and opening of The Library as they'd run through it, which was all very recent. According to the Doctor, The Library had hardly been open for a year, though many of the rooms and the things in them looked about the same age as Hogwarts.

The room they were in now was very poorly lit, and Hermione was hesitant to follow the gangly time traveller up a dark staircase leading to an unlit loft area.

She saw no way around it as The Doctor disappeared into the darkness halfway up the stairs, and though she'd been uncertain about having her wand out before, they appeared to be alone now, so she drew it cautiously as she slowly ascended the narrow staircase. She'd have to remember to ask The Doctor about The Statute of Secrecy and how it works in time and space travelling. She didn't like not knowing things, as she wasn't used to it, but there was a spark of excitement to it.

"Here we go," The Doctor sounded pleased, but despite being half a step behind him in the cramped loft, it was so dark that she couldn't see much.

Uncertain about how The Doctor would react, but more concerned about visibility in this unfamiliar space for safety's sake, Hermione murmured, "_Lumos._"

"Oh that's brilliant, Hermione. I forgot you've got your wand," The Doctor grinned at her, as she could see his face now in the golden glow surrounding her wandtip.

"What are we looking for, Doctor?" Hermione asked, though by now she knew better than to expect a straightforward answer. She was hoping for instructions, at least, to see if she could help.

"This!" The Doctor was leaning with one ear against an old wooden door, passing his blue torch wand over the space where the handle should have been, but there wasn't one there.

"What is that? Is it some alien sort of wand?" Hermione asked, pointing at the silver object that was no longer glowing blue at the tip, but the Doctor was examining it closely.

"Sonic screwdriver," The Doctor replied distractedly. "We're going to need some spellwork to get in, I think," he nodded at Hermione's illuminated wand.

"Then I'd like some answers before I agree to anything," Hermione said firmly, but not unpleasantly.

The Doctor looked impatiently at the door, but resigned to Hermione's demands. "My sonic screwdriver is sort of like your wand. More capable in some ways, more limited in others." Glancing impatiently at the door again, he added, "For example, it doesn't work on wood and it can't cast spells."

"Alright, so where does this door go and why are we going through it?"

The Doctor's impatient scowl brightened into a mischevious grin as he replied, "It leads into the Witchcraft and Wizardry section of The Library."

Suddenly, the lack of a doorknob and The Doctor's knowing grins when she asked where they were going all made sense now. "Right, then. This will be simple." Hermione gestured for The Doctor to step back from the door, and pointing her wand where the handle should have been, she said, "_Alohomora_."


	3. The Library (Part 2)

Sure enough, with a loud click, the lock shifted and the door opened. "Nice work, Hermione!" She returned The Doctor's smile modestly, as it wasn't a complicated spell in the least, and followed him through the door.

Hermione had been expecting a large room on the other side of the door, but instead she found herself and The Doctor in a small anteroom with no windows and a large portrait of an elderly wizard dozing off in an armchair as tall and narrow as he was, with an open book in his lap. The door closing itself behind Hermione and The Doctor startled him awake.

Clearing his throat, the wizard's voice was much more gravelly than Hermione expected for such a thin man. "Welcome to the Witchcraft and Wizardry section of The Library! If you could just present your wands as verification, please!"

Hermione and The Doctor stepped in front of the portrait and held out their wands and wand-equivalents, respectively. Upon seeing The Doctor's sonic screwdriver, the wizard's eyes widened and tracked a path up his arm and to his face.

"Doctor? Had a dose of Polyjuice, have you?"

The Doctor smirked and said, "No, sir. Just a change of face is all."

"There's no such magic!" The wizard exclaimed, eyeing the doctor incredulously.

"You're right, there isn't. You're not in the right section of the Library to know what sort of magic this isn't," The Doctor winked, and the elderly wizard chuckled.

"Alright, then. So you've brought a new friend in this time, have you?" The wizard finally turned his attention to Hermione.

"Right!" The Doctor seemed to have nearly forgotten about Hermione, "Gary, this here is Miss Hermione Granger."

"Oh my! Hermione Granger? Really?" The wizard repeated, sitting up abruptly to lean forward in his chair, knocking his book out of his lap. "Garius Tomkink, Miss Granger. A pleasure to meet you, indeed! I've read quite a lot about you, and your accomplishments with that Potter boy. Marvelous! Wonderful to meet you, Miss Granger."

Hermione blushed, but before she could respond, The Doctor clapped his hands and was moving on to bigger and better things. "Right, then, Gary. If you could just—"

"Oh, by all means! Do enjoy your visit, and come back if you need anything!" Garius's portrait swung to the side, similar to that of the Fat Lady at the entrance to Gryffindor Tower, and Hermione followed The Doctor through the small passageway.

There was a great deal of light at the end, and when they stepped out, Hermione was surprised to find they were outside. There was magically maintained grass beneath their feet, and a very bright and slightly orange sky above them. They were standing in a circular courtyard that was bordered around its circumference by twelve tall marble towers. The pointed tops of the towers were all glass, and the reflection of the sunlight on them gave them the appearance of enormous wands engaged by the Lumos spell.

The Doctor took Hermione's hand and led her excitedly over to the first tower on their left, and Hermione gasped when they walked in. The glass top of the tower let in enough light to spread through the entire space without any need for candles or light spells. A spiral staircase sprang from a tile sun pattern in the center of the floor, and rose straight up to the top of the tower, a dozen stories high. At each level, a small walkway extended from the staircase to bridge the gap between the staircase in the center of the circular space and the tiers of bookshelves that ran around the circumference.

"Oh, Doctor, this is fantastic!" Hermione breathed, turning on the spot to take it all in. A sign over the entrance to the tower read 'Biographies.'

"Every biography from the wizarding world that has ever been written up to the 50th century is in here," The Doctor said, his pleasure with Hermione's awe apparent by the look on his face.

"So… there are books in here that haven't been written yet in my time."

"Yep! There's even a few about you in here," The Doctors eyebrows jerked upwards suggestively.

"But I can't—"

"Clever girl, of course you can't read those. Just like the rules with Time Turners," The Doctor said solemnly, adding with a suggestive hand tilt, "More or less." He watched for a few moments as Hermione gazed up at the books all around them before saying, "Don't be afraid to have a look, though. Just mind the authors and publishing dates."

"I'll be careful!" Hermione called over her shoulder as she ascended the spiral staircase.

As Hermione reached the second level and stepped off onto the catwalk leading from the staircase to the biographies labeled C-D, The Doctor hurried up the staircase from below and paused when he saw where Hermione was headed.

"C through D… D as in Dumbledore?" He guessed, apparently correctly as Hermione nodded. He smiled sadly before reminding her, "Don't read anything about significant occurances or people beyond your time."

"I know, Doctor, I don't need to be told twice," Hermione assured him before disappearing down one of the last D aisles.

The Doctor had barely been able to explore the top of the tower's structure and architecture before he heard Hermione's voice call up to him from below. Stepping out onto the twelfth catwalk, he looked down and saw Hermione on the second catwalk shielding her eyes from the sunlight coming in from behind and above the Doctor.

"Doctor, there's something strange down here. I think you ought to come down and see," As she spoke, The Doctor noticed that—despite the plentiful sunlight flooding the tower—Hermione's wand was lit.

"Alright, hang on," The Doctor hurried down the spiral staircase, round and down and round and down, until he was standing by Hermione with his sonic screwdriver drawn. "What is it?"

"Down here," Hermione led the way slowly to the aisle simply marked "Dumbledore" rather than "Du," because there were so many biographies on Albus Dumbledore that they took up their own aisle entirely. The Doctor made to go down the aisle, but Hermione held out an arm to stop him, her other arm pointing her lit wand down the aisle. "I was looking through the books in here when I noticed a peculiar shadow on the floor. At first, I thought it was a stain or discarded cloak, because it wasn't falling the way a shadow should do in this light. But when I lit my wand to get a closer look, it sort of…" she hesitated, the confidence and certainty in her voice faltering.

"It sort of what, Hermione?" The Doctor asked intently, his dark eyes piercing unblinkingly into the aisle.

"It made a sort of hissing sound and disappeared," she replied, sounding almost sheepish.

"That's what it did when you shone a light at it?" The Doctor asked, and when Hermione nodded, he strode determinedly into the aisle, sonic pointed ahead of him.

"Doctor, don't! I don't know what it was, it could be dangerous!" Hermione reached to grab his arm, but he was already beyond her reach.

"Where was it, exactly?" The Doctor asked, ignoring Hermione's warning.

"It was right in front of a series that Rita Skeeter did on the entire family," Hermione said, unable to hide her distaste for the reporter in her tone.

"S… Sk… Sk…Skeeter…Skeeter!" The Doctor mumbled to himself as he scanned the shelves to find the right place. "It was on the floor, right here?"

"Yes," Hermione hesitantly stepped towards The Doctor, but he held up a hand and told her to stay back. He pointed his sonic at the space where the shadow had been and it illuminated the floor in blue light, making a strange buzzing sound. "I knew I should've just gone to find Muggle Studies…" Hermione muttered to herself frustratedly.

"What was that?" The Doctor asked, not having heard her properly. He had been examining his sonic, but now he stood frowning at Hermione in thought.

"Oh, nothing. I had intended to find some books on Muggle Studies for my classes at Hogwarts, in another tower, probably, but when we came in to biographies, I couldn't help but look to see what there was on Dumbledore."

"Nothing wrong with curiosity as long as you're careful," The Doctor assured her distractedly as he walked back towards and then past her to investigate the neighboring aisle. There was lots of buzzing and clicking and thoughtful noises coming from The Doctor for the next few minutes as he paced up and down the Dumbledore aisle and the two that were immediately next to it. He began to talk (apparently to himself, as Hermione hardly understood a word of it) as he worked and pointed his sonic at seemingly random places in the two aisles that concerned him the most.

"If it was a shadow, that's awfully suspicious, but I don't think it could be that… well, of course it isn't really a shadow. It's a shadow that isn't a shadow. But it does sound an awfully lot like this one creature I know of… it could just be a fluke with the sun on this planet, that has been known to happen. Or maybe even the moon, which is a bit bright for this time of day, don't you think? Strange." He paused for a moment. "Still though, it could be anything…" The Doctor's incomprehensible conversation with himself went on like this for quite some time. Hermione, meanwhile, was keeping a close watch on the space on the floor where she'd seen the strange shadow.

The Doctor was standing against the back wall of the tower now, at the opposite end from Hermione, looking back and forth between the Dumbledore aisle and the "Do-" aisle next to it. "Hermione, come here and tell me if you see anything strange that's different about these two aisles."

Hermione nervously hurried past the offending stretch of floor to join The Doctor at the back of the aisles against the curved marble wall. He pointed to the Dumbledore aisle, which looked quite normal, and then to the "Do-" aisle, which looked… different. Hermione gasped when she saw that the shadow was in the second aisle, going the opposite way from the other shadows and definitely looking significantly darker, but also smaller. It was as if an invisible book was standing upright on the floor, with a bright light just above it.

"What is it?" Hermione whispered, steadying her voice but not quite her nerves.

"Vashta Nerada," The Doctor replied grimly.

"What?" Hermione looked quizzically at The Doctor. Not recognizing those words intensified her fear.

"It's a creature that lives in the dark and the shadows. It appears we've got a small, newly hatched swarm that somehow wormed its way into this section of the Library," The Doctor's tone was alarmingly grim as he explained this to Hermione.

"What do they do? What can we do to… to chase them off or…" But the Doctor interrupted her, shaking his head.

"Nothing we can do but stay out of the way. You're lucky to have been so close and gotten away," Now The Doctor looked puzzled, and turned his attention from the shadow to Hermione, "Usually light just slows them down, but I imagine your Lumos is a bit more powerful than your average Muggle lamp or torch."

"What do they do?" Hermione asked, trying to read how alarmed she should be judging by The Doctor's expression, but all she could see was concerned frustration.

"If you had a meat lunch with you, I could show you," The Doctor said, apparently not expecting Hermione to be able to smilingly produce a chicken leg out of thin air. Hermione had only just been getting the hang of the food and cooking spells, as Mrs. Weasley had been teaching her.

After the Battle of Hogwarts four years ago, she and Harry had moved in to The Burrow (at Mr. and Mrs. Weasley's stubborn insistence). Two years later, Harry and Ginny got married and moved out on their own; and since then, Mrs. Weasley had been spending a lot of time teaching Hermione all sorts of useful household spells, which had come to the young witch as naturally as Divination.

The Doctor took the chicken leg from Hermione with a grin and said, "That's brilliant, Hermione!"

"I've only just been getting the hang of it recently," she admitted with a small smile. "I saw a sign on our way here for a cafeteria somewhere, and I imagine they won't miss a piece of chicken."

The Doctor's cheer was temporary, however, as he turned grim-faced back to the shadow and tossed the chicken leg at it. As soon as it crossed the shadow, there was a sudden hissing and tearing sound and in a matter seconds the bone was clean.

"They're usually a bit faster, but this is a smaller swarm and they're still a bit young," The Doctor observed, but either the chicken leg had sent the wrong message, or it had emboldened the swarm, because now the shadow was slowly advancing towards them, seeping across the floor like a dark stain.

Hermione tried shooting several spells at the swarm, but they either dissipated on contact, or rebounded back at herself and The Doctor. After nearly catching herself with a stunning spell and The Doctor with _Impedimentia_, Hermione stopped firing spells for their own safety.

"Doctor, what do we do?" Hermione asked helplessly, holding her wand out at arm's length, the tip still shining brightly with the Lumos spell.

"Well, normally I'd say run, but," he glanced anxiously to the left and right, "We're surrounded at the moment, so that's not really an option."

Hermione glanced to the sides as well, and saw that they really were trapped against the wall. Both sides of them where they could've run around the outer edge of the tower behind the book aisles were marked by slowly advancing shadows, and the aisle immediately in front of them had the original shadow creeping towards them. Hermione waved her wand back and forth in a semi-circle around herself and The Doctor, trying to keep the three swarms at bay with the light from her wand, but having three people with wands would have been much more effective.

"Can't you produce light out of your sonic screwdriver?" Hermione asked desperately.

"Not anything that would help us here," he replied gravely, clearly deep in thought, searching for a way to get out.

"Can't you… blast the bookshelves back or something? I could, but I'm afraid to put out the light," Hermione's wand movements quickened as the shadows crept ever closer.

"I can't…" The Doctor almost mumbled his answer.

"Why not? What use is that thing if it can't make light or move anything out of the way?"

"It doesn't work on wood!" The Doctor exclaimed frustratedly, and Hermione almost forgot about the danger they were in for how ridiculous the Time Lord's statement was.

"What kind of a useless tool is that, then? It doesn't do wood! Honestly!"

"Oi! Now's not the time for insults, is it?"

Getting herself back together to focus on their predicament, Hermione said, "Alright, I'm going to try to blast this row of bookcases. If we hurry, we can make it back to the staircase to get out of here." She paused, waiting for The Doctor to respond.

"Well, get on with it then! I'm not arguing!" The Doctor exclaimed urgently.

"Right, okay. One the count of three. One… two… three! _Confringo!" _The bookcases in between the shadowed aisle and the one beside it shattered into splintery pieces, which Hermione and The Doctor ran through with their arms over their faces. As they dashed towards the staircase, The Doctor only just in time seized Hermione's elbow and pulled her back.

"Another one?!" Hermione groaned, eyeing the shadow warily as it crept towards them across the walkway.

"No, hang on," The Doctor was thinking out loud, looking up at the bright light shining through the glass roof of the tower, and then back down at the slow-moving shadow. "Oh, brilliant. Hermione, have you got any other light spells to use?"

"But nothing else worked—"

"Look at all the light, Hermione. The center, out here by the stairs, is the brightest part of the tower. Light makes them weak, slows them down. Now is the chance to get rid of them all. The others will be here soon… yes, look! There they are!" The Doctor turned and pointed behind them at the three shadows from before.

"You sound pleased to see them!" Hermione observed incredulously.

"Of course I am! We can get rid of them here while they're weakest, if you just use the right spellwork. Something with light, Hermione, think!"

"Um…" Hermione wracked her brain. Lumos was the only one she could think of that wouldn't cause any greater damage to the Library. There were plenty of fire spells, but she wanted to avoid those if she could.

"Come on, Hermione! Think light! Brightness! Illumination! Suns and stars!" The Doctor's excited adjectives were more distracting than helpful as Hermione tried to think, but suddenly—

"The Deluminator! Of course!" She exclaimed, and dug furiously in the pockets of her robes. She withdrew the familiar device that Dumbledore had left Ron in his will several years ago.

"Brilliant! What is it?" The Doctor's nerves apparently made him very excitable when he was in a tight situation, because now he looked like an 11-year-old receiving his letter from Hogwarts.

"I'll explain later!" Hermione clicked the silver device, and four small spheres of light flew out of it and hung in the air around Hermione and The Doctor. Rounding them up with her wand, Hermione turned to face the three shadows approaching them from behind, aimed her wand at them, and shouted, "_Oppugno!_" The luminous spheres launched themselves at the first shadow, which let out a screeching sound before disappearing and taking one of the spheres with it. Hermione pointed her wand next at the second shadow, and the remaining three spheres rallied and attacked that one, and again at the third. Now there was only one sphere left, and Hermione turned and flicked her wand at the last shadow, the smallest one on the sunlit catwalk. Instead of screeching like the other three swarms, this one merely hissed before folding on itself and disappearing with the glowing ball of light.

"That was brilliant!" The Doctor exclaimed, running a hand excitedly through his hair, which was standing on end from all the excitement. It wasn't quite as animated, and it wasn't magical, but something about The Doctor's hair reminded Hermione of Tonks. It was as if it had its own personality to match The Doctor's.

As they descended the spiral staircase and walked back towards the tower door on the ground floor, The Doctor asked, "What was that device? Can I have a look?"

"It was a Deluminator. An invention of Dumbledore's," Hermione explained, taking it out of her pocket but pulling it away when The Doctor reached for it. "Ron would kill me if I let anyone else touch it. And now Mrs. Weasley will be cross, because those lights were from her kitchen."

"It captures and releases light, then?"

Hermione nodded, and when The Doctor continued to repeat the word "brilliant" with varying volumes and inflections, she couldn't help but smile.

When they left the tower and went back into the small entryhouse with the portrait of Garius Tomkink, The Doctor turned to Garius after his portrait swung back to block the passageway.

"Could you contact the head librarians to let them know there's been a nasty Vashta Nerada infestation in the Biographies tower?"

"Vashta what now?" Garius rubbed his ears and raised an eyebrow at The Doctor.

"It's been taken care of, but I think they should be informed so they can prevent it in the future," The Doctor replied, ignoring Garius's confusion.

"Right, yes, Doctor. I'll see what I can do," Garius and The Doctor exchanged polite nods of farewell and Garius winked at Hermione before they headed back to the lobby where the TARDIS was waiting.


	4. Dinas Ffaraon

"That was brilliant, wasn't it?" The Doctor asked Hermione brightly upon their re-entry into the TARDIS.

"I suppose if that's what you want to call it," Hermione said glumly, sitting on a small couch by the central platform's railing.

"What's the matter?" The Doctor asked, his large eyes sharp with concern.

"I didn't really get to read any of the books," Hermione replied with an uncomfortable shrug. "It was certainly an adventure, but I would have liked to explore The Library some more."

"Well then, that can be fixed without a problem! What were you set on reading about?" The Doctor strode over to Hermione and leaned against the part of the console that was directly in front of where she was seated.

Hermione brightened considerably at The Doctor's encouraging words and replied, "Well, I've been meaning to do more research on famous wizards. I've been relying mostly on myths and tales; you know, stories passed on through families rather than being formally published. But I'd like to sort out fact from fiction, with wizards like Nicholas Flamel or Merlin or—"

The Doctor was beaming when he interrupted Hermione: "You've forgotten something, Miss Granger. We've got a TARDIS. You don't have to read books to learn about history; you can go there and see for yourself!"

"What?" Hermione did not seem amazed, but rather distraught. "You have to be careful with time travel! You can't just… show up to major historical events! That's against the rules!"

"Maybe your rules, but not mine," The Doctor replied playfully as he began pulling levers and twisting knobs, and even started typing into what appeared to be an old Muggle typewriter.

"Are we really going to the Middle Ages to meet the greatest wizard who ever lived?" Hermione asked, her distress melting into excitement.

"You bet we are!" The Doctor grinned at Hermione before pulling the largest lever, which set the TARDIS whirring and vorping, all the while tossing Hermione and The Doctor into the railing and against the console. As the noise quieted down and the turbulance subsided, the Doctor proclaimed, almost as if he were a train conductor, "Merlin: born of mortal woman, sired by an incubus!" He dashed towards the door to take his coat off the ramp railing, and started pulling it on hurriedly.

"I'd heard that his birth was vague and mysterious. In my world, anyway. No one had really found a solid explanation. There were lots of theories, of course… but I've never heard of an incubus before. What is it?" Hermione asked, dawdling thoughtfully by the console.

"It's a… well… a sort of…" The Doctor suddenly looked rather uncomfortable. "It's a demon that seduces women in their sleep."

Hermione was horrified at the thought. She hadn't done a great deal of research on demons, but what she did know from getting her N.E.W.T.s was not good. "What, like a… a grindylow on land?"

The Doctor hesitated, trying to find an explanation in his head that Hermione would understand, in the context of the wizarding world. "Well, they're mean-spirited like grindylows, but incubi can take whatever shape or appearance they think their victim will like most. Sort of like a backwards boggart; they're very smart, though. And very sneaky." Hermione nodded thoughtfully, and The Doctor spoke up to catch her attention: "Now come on, let's get out there and see if we can find the most famous wizard of all time!" The Doctor extended his hand towards Hermione, an eager toothy grin on his face, but she hesitated. "What's the matter? You thought this was a brilliant idea, didn't you?"

"Yes, of course it is! I just… this is a lot of pressure! We're about to see Merlin, _in the flesh!_" Hermione's voice nearly squeaked with nervousness and excitement.

"Oh, come now, Hermione. This is the early 5th century; if I've got our timing right, Merlin should just be a child now. Mind you, a brilliantly talented child, but still a child. This is just before all the fame and fortune. Now come on, let's go and have a look!"

"Alright," Hermione finally pushed past her nerves and followed The Doctor out of the TARDIS, but did not take his hand; he'd nearly removed her arm from its socket when he was dragging her across The Library, and she'd rather keep her arm where it belonged.

They found themselves just a short distance away from a grassy hilltop littered with bits of wood and stone, at the base of which was a large grouping of men. There was a smattering of others poking aimlessly about the hillside, while the more concentrated group at the bottom stood waiting for something. The latter group appeared to be made up of several decorated soldiers with horses and a group of elderly men in dark robes, not dissimilar to Hermione's.

"Where are we, Doctor?" Hermione asked, and spotting the glint of a crown and royal clothing on a man in the center of the larger group, gasped and added, "Is that a King? Uther, perhaps? Or Arthur?"

"No, no, we're not quite there yet," The Doctor stopped walking to lick his finger and test the air. "We're in the early 5th century, at the base of Dinas Ffaraon, or as it is known from this day forward—"

"Dinas Emrys!" Hermione interrupted in an awed whisper, continuing excitedly, "The two dragons! We're going to see the dragons?"

"That's the idea," The Doctor said with a wink and continued walking towards the men at the base of the hill.

Hermione backtracked their conversation to its source, and refocused on the king she'd spotted. "So that's King Vortigern, then?"

"Yep," The Doctor replied. "And any moment now, we should be seeing his men returning with a very young Merlin."

"Wait a minute! Doctor, what are they going to think of us? And our clothes? Goodness, we don't even speak the language!" Hermione had stopped walking abruptly and seized The Doctor's arm in alarm, but The Doctor let out a hearty laugh.

"You'll be fine as long as you keep your wand hidden and your cloak pulled 'round. And I prefer not blending in myself," He proudly smoothed the lapels of his long jacket before continuing, "And don't worry about the language. The TARDIS takes care of that for us. We can understand and speak the local language upon landing."

"How…?" Hermione began, but The Doctor shushed her, as they'd been noticed and were being called over to where the King and his wise men stood.

"You there, travellers! Come here!" The King himself called out to them. Plain as if she were back in her own time, Hermione could understand every word the King was saying, though she could not understand how.

The Doctor and Hermione hurried to the group, and upon reaching them, were greeted with many peculiar looks and mutterings amongst the group of cloaked men. Hermione thought back to the versions of this story she'd heard from the Weasleys, and remembered Ron and George arguing over how many wise men there had been. Ron had insisted there were 40, and George asserted that there were only twelve. Hermione counted heads and found that George had been right. Ron would be furious.

"Foreign travellers, are you?" The King asked genially, his voice loud and pompous as he appraised The Doctor and Hermione's apperance.

"Yes, Your Majesty," The Doctor replied, bowing his head respectfully. Hermione followed suit, and though The Doctor raised his head when he next spoke, Hermione kept hers down, partly because she recognized women's place in society at the time, but mostly due to nerves.

"And what brings you out this way?"

"I heard you were having some difficulty building out here, and as a carpenter myself, I thought I might offer my services if they were needed." The Doctor a carpenter, indeed. Hermione could only barely keep herself from laughing, recalling The Doctor's strange wand-like device and how he'd called it a screwdriver. She wondered if The Doctor had even seen a real screwdriver before, and suddenly the thought struck her that the time traveller and Mr. Weasley would get on extremely well.

"That is generous of you, traveller, but we have no need of your services now," The King gestured towards the men scattered about the hilltop, who Hermione could see now were not nearly as well-dressed or well-fed as the soldiers and wise men. With great restraint, she bit her cheeks to avoid tutting at the injustice. The King continued, "My carpenters and stonemasons await the arrival of a bastard child to sacrifice for his blood to ensure the successful construction of my fortress."

"Of course, Your Majesty. Might I trouble you for the details of the construction problems while you wait? Hearing word from villagers to villagers tends to jumble the story a bit."

The King considered this, looked towards a path coming out from behind a wooded area, and then back at The Doctor. "Very well. It's been a very strange affair, you see. Whenever my stonemasons and carpenters have tried assembling their materials, by dawn the next day they've vanished. No trace of any of the materials, or wagon wheel treads, or anything of the sort to indicate thievery."

"So naturally, you've decided to perform the blood sacrifice to make sure the construction goes as planned," The Doctor replied, and the King nodded. The Doctor asked, "No wagon wheel marks or anything?"

"Nothing of the sort," The King replied, shaking his head in puzzlement.

"There are your guards with the boy, sir," One of the soldiers pointed from behind King Vortigern, out towards a dirt road coming from around a wooded bend. The King waved away The Doctor and Hermione, who hurriedly stepped back as the two additional soldiers approached quickly on horseback, one of whom had a child on his horse with him.

Upon arriving moments later, the guards bowed and presented—one holding each of the boy's arms—a young boy who was unmistakably Merlin. His face was ageless as it ever was in the pictures Hermione had seen, but judging by the rest of him, he was only about eight years old, like The Doctor had said.

"Why have you brought me here?" Merlin demanded; to anyone who didn't know who he was, he'd have sounded impudent for his age, especially in the presence of a King.

The King apparently saw him in just that way, but he replied in his large voice, "You are to be put to death, so that your blood can be used to ensure the successful construction of my fortress."

Young Merlin furrowed his brow and asked, "Who told you to do that?"

The King looked surprised by Merlin's forward and demanding behavior in the presence of not just an elder, but a King. However, he appeared to be more curious than affronted now, and so he humored the boy. "My wise men."

Merlin broke eye contact with King Vortigern, and looked sharply around at the cloaked men gathered behind him, many of whom were clustered close together and whispering amongst themselves, as—Hermione had learned in the past few minutes—wise men of the 5th century are apparently wont to do. Either they knew full well who Merlin was, or they were beginning to get a vague idea from the large presence the small boy had; either way, they were clearly beginning to get nervous, especially now that they'd been called out.

Speaking to these wise men now, Merlin raised his voice to be heard, and the childish pitch nearly evaporated entirely. "Who told you, wise men, that my blood would be of use to the King in this way?" There was a tense silence where even the whispering stopped. All eyes—save Hermione's and The Doctor's, focused on Merlin—were on the wise men. Speaking louder now, Merlin demanded, "Do not lie or attempt to deceive me as you have done to your King, wise men. Who revealed my identity to you?" Still, the wise men stood in a nervous silence.

"They know who he is?" Hermione whispered to The Doctor.

"Of course they do! You didn't think they just happened upon the greatest wizard of all time by chance, did you?" The Doctor murmured in response.

"What do you mean by all these questions, boy?" The King demanded, losing his patience with who he thought was just a stubborn boy.

"You'll understand my intent soon, but first I'd like to ask your wise men about what lies beneath this hilltop," Merlin pressed on obstinately. Though the wise men still offered no verbal response, this time they looked at each other and shrugged their shoulders in bewilderment. Turning back to King Vortigern, Merlin finally began to explain what he'd been getting at: "There is a cavern beneath this hilltop. Dig over there, and you'll see."

King Vortigern appeared to be torn between losing patience with Merlin and doing as he said for curiosity's sake. Deciding to go with the latter, the King pointed to the group of stonemasons and ordered them to dig at the steeper side of the hill that Merlin had indicated. There were many other dug-out patches of varying depths scattered across the hilltop, Hermione noticed, and pointed this out in a whisper to The Doctor.

Clearing his throat, The Doctor asked, "Your Majesty? I would imagine those other holes are for the foundations of your fortress, except they don't make four corners. Why is that?"

Turning his attention reluctantly away from the stonemasons as they dug under Merlin's watch, the King replied, "My stonemasons kept running into solid rock trying to dig out space to lay the foundation. There are four points in there, if you look at it right."

Sure enough, though it looked like a diamond from The Doctor and Hermione's angle, there were four equidistant points amongst the mass of other seemingly random patches of dug-up earth.

"Do you think the supplies could be smuggled underground through one of those other holes?" Hermione asked The Doctor under her breath. However, he didn't get the chance to reply, as the stonemasons had stopped digging and were gazing along with Merlin and King Vortigern into the hole they'd carved out of the side of the hill. It was about waist-high and just large enough for a man to get his head and shoulders through. Hermione and The Doctor peered into it, and were just as shocked as the others to find that the stonemasons' hole opened up into a larger cavernous space deep into the hill; the hillside was apparently—and rather peculiarly—hollow.

"I'll be damned. This is some kind of cave disguised as a hill," the King scratched and shook his head in disbelief. "How did you know that was there, boy?"

Either Merlin didn't hear the question or he was simply ignoring it, because now he was turned to the wise men again as he asked them, "Now, tell your King what is in this cavern." Again, the group of cloaked men remained sheepishly silent. "There is a pool," and Merlin pointed into the hole, towards the farther side of the cavern that was too dark to make out. Out of the corner of her eye, Hermione caught The Doctor fiddling with his hand in one pocket, fingers itching to use his sonic screwdriver. She couldn't blame him, because she was similarly tempted to take out her wand and use the Lumos spell to see better.

"Alright, boy, enough of these games," The King declared, finally losing his patience. "It's too dark to see in there, so you couldn't possibly know what's in this strange hill-cave."

Merlin asked the King calmly, as if his life wasn't on the line (though, Hermione supposed he knew already that it wasn't), "Have I been wrong yet, Your Majesty?" King Vortigern was at a loss for how to respond to that, as the young wizard had a point, and so Merlin pressed on patiently, "Throw a rock into the cave, and you'll hear it hit water."

The various men grouped about the King stood at attention, waiting for one of them to be told to do as Merlin suggested. Instead, the King himself stooped to pick up a stone from the ground, and tossed it through the hole. Sure enough, a wet plunk echoed off the walls, proving that Merlin had once again been correct. But then there was another sound, unexpected to everyone but Merlin, of something else stirring noisily within…

"Is there something else in there?" King Vortigern asked Merlin; the King, the boy, and The Doctor were the only people in the group who did not look suddenly fearful of what was hidden beyond the opening in the side of the hill.

"Any moment now, what lies within that cave will wake, but we must not interfere. We are here as spectators only," Merlin warned the group.

"What's in that cave, boy?" King Vortigern demanded, no fear but all seriousness in his tone.

"Two dragons: one red, the other white," Merlin replied simply. The stonemasons and carpenters gasped, the wise men whispered furiously (and rather skeptically) amongst themselves, and the soldiers exchanged sidelong nervous glances.

Finally, one of the wise men spoke up: one of the younger ones whose hair had only just begun to turn gray. "Dragons or not, how are we to see anything inside the cave? It's dark as night in there, you silly boy!"

"The dragons will begin to fight, and their fiery breath will light the chamber enough for you to see," Merlin explained patiently, but most everyone's attention was turned towards the cave in the hill now, where noises almost like hissing voices were echoing from within. The volume and ferocity was rising, and Hermione could swear she recognized a word or two of it, though it was in a heavy foreign accent. She glanced up at The Doctor, and he was concentrating on the sounds inside the cave, straining to catch the same pieces of conversation that Hermione was hearing.

Soon, one of the dragons emitted a sound that sounded like a cross between a shout and a roar, and while many of the masons and carpenters backed away from the hole at the sound, the King, his soldiers, Hermione, The Doctor, and Merlin gathered closer to it to see better. There was a second roar from a second dragon (Hermione wasn't sure how she could tell them apart, but they were slightly different even by sound), and Hermione saw Merlin covertly toss a ball of fire into the hole so that the cavern was better lit.

Hermione clapped a hand to her mouth when she saw, right before her, the two dragons of legend: the red Welsh dragon and the white Saxon dragon. But they didn't look like any dragons she'd ever seen before; not entirely, anyway. They looked sort of human, with slightly human facial features and a crude, almost oversized Goblin-esque build and stature. But they were still very tall and muscular, with scales, large pointed ears, taloned fingers and toes, and long, lethal tails. Also unlike most dragons Hermione had seen (either from Charlie's pictures, her research for and experience from the Triwizard Tournament, and the dragon in Gringotts), these two dragons did not have wings.

"Doctor, what-?" She began, but both Merlin and The Doctor hushed her, bent intently towards the hole, watching the two dragons pacing around each other. The larger white dragon was rasping angrily at the red one, and just when it looked as though the red one would simply fold and collapse to the ground (clearly intimidated by the white dragon's rasping, which occasionally included articulations that sounded almost like 'family' and 'home'), the red dragon reared and hurtled after the white one, chasing it out of the cave and out of sight down a previously unseen tunnel.

"You see, Your Majesty," Merlin said once the dragons disappeared, making a subtle gesture with his hand to put out the flame he'd conjured earlier, "The red dragon represents your country of Wales, while the white dragon represents the attacking Saxons. The red dragon's victory over the white dragon—in chasing it out of the cave—symbolizes and foretells of your country's eventual victory over the Saxons."


	5. A brief message from the author

Hey everybody! Sorry to fake you out into thinking I'd posted the next chapter.

I just wanted to let you all know that I realize it's been a while since I left you with that Chapter 4 cliffhanger. I've been busy lately with a lot going on (just life in general - nothing bad), so I haven't had the time or presence of mind to continue working on Chapter 5.

I've picked it back up again in the past few days, though, and by next week it'll be finished and posted. It's a long chapter that involved some research, which is another reason why it's taking so long for me to finish it.

So I just thought I'd pop in to let you all know I haven't abandoned the story (which has been known to happen in the world of fanfiction)! I'm working on Chapter 5 as we speak, and it should be done soon. Thanks for your patience, and I assure you it will be rewarded!

(This "chapter" will be deleted when I post the real 5th chapter)

-Ezra


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